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Saturn is unique.
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Unlike the other eight planets in our solar system (yes Pluto counts to me!), Saturn has one thing going for it the others are lacking.
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Rings!
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Beautiful, multicoloured rings; they make the sixth planet from the sun a cosmic marvel, but how and why are they there?
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Hello and welcome back to Life’s Biggest Questions, I am your host Rebecca Felgate and today I am asking: why does Saturn have rings?
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Before we take off into this video, I just want to ask you guys to leave me your comments down below.
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Okay Saturn, you big old planetary babe, what have you got for us?
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Well, okay, something I said at the beginning of this video isn’t actually true….
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While Saturn certainly boasts the most impressive array of rings, it isn’t actually the only planet in our hood with them.
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It seems that Neptune, Jupiter and Uranus have rings, oh, oh.
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Jupiter’s rings, for example, were only discovered in nineteen seventy nine by Nasa’s Voyager one,
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and are very thin and dark, unlike Saturn’s big bright ice rings, that have been the centre of much discussion for hundreds of years.
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Now, I don’t want you to get too excited straight away, but the subject of Saturn’s rings is still much debated in the astrological world;
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even our mates at Nasa don’t have a definitive answer as to why they are there, but we do have a few pretty big clues.
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You may have spotted a common denominator between the four planets with advertised rings here – Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune are four gas giants.
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They are our only gas giants, gas giants.
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This likely tells us something about the way gravity on these huge planets influences their surroundings.
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While we know a little more about Jupiter’s very faint rings,
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Saturn’s big boys have been a source of fascination and deliberation since they were first observed by Galileo Galilei in sixteen ten.
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Since then, we have discovered Saturn has seven groups of rings made up of thousands of smaller rings.
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Four of the group of seven stand out as being bigger than the other three, and each are separated by gaps that scientists are calling divisions.
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Four hundred one years after Galileo first observed Saturn’s rings, American Astrophysicist, Robin Canup posed a new theory on the planets ring formation.
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This theory is widely considered to be the most credible suggestion to date.
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She says that Saturns rings are icy remains of an old smashed up moon.
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She thinks this moon formed billions of years ago but got too close to the planet to uphold a stable orbit
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and instead was sucked close to Saturn, it’s gravity ripping it a part and unravelling its icy outer layers into the prominent rings in orbit today.
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She thinks the rock core of the moon the likely smashed into Saturn.
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As for the five percent of Saturn’s rings that aren’t space dust – it is thought by Canup that this is made up of meteorites that have hurtled towards Saturn over the years.
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Her theory is largely supported by Nasa’s Larry Esposito.
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While this theory does seem to explain the inner rings of Saturn, the space probe, Cassini, which studied the planet from two thousand four to two thousand seventeen,
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suggested that the outer ring, the E ring, is made from ice, silicates, carbon dioxide and ammonia from cryocolcanic plumes.
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So, basically this is volcanic matter from Enceladus, Saturn’s sixth largest moon.
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This could explain why Saturn’s rings are observed to be different colours; they’re made up from different parts of icy matter.
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While Cassini plunged into Saturn in two thousand seventeen, it did managed to skirt the inner rings and send a lot of data back to Earth, which is still being deciphered today.
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While scientists don’t have all the answers yet, it is thought that the key to understanding the group formation of the rings comes from studying the planets Roche limit.
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Now, the Roche limit is the distance in which a space object can get to a planet, without its own mass being sucked into the planets gravity.
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It seems Saturn's rings positions are determined by the space matters Roche limit,
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although some of the planet's moons do fall amid the rings, no doubt having their own gravitational effect.
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Final fact for you; whilst Saturn is the most ringalicious planet in our solar system today, it is suspected that Mars will one day become a ringed planet too.
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Its moon, Phobos, is slowly being drawn closer to the red planet.
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In tens of millions of years, like the suspected events that caused Saturn’s iconic rings,
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Phobos would likely be torn apart by Mars’ gravity and form a ring of debris around our neighbour.
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So there we have it – not a definite answer but an answer using the best available information as to why Saturn has rings.
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Sadly, it doesn’t seem like Earth will be getting ringy with it any time soon, which makes me kind of sad.
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If you guys liked this video and if you want more space content then please do leave this video with a thumbs up,
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also why not leave me a comment letting me know why you think Saturn has rings, are they a conspiracy theory, are they really there?
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Also let me know what your favourite planet is!
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I am your host Rebecca Felgate, I’ll catch you in the next video, but fir now, stay curious, stay alert and never ever stop questioning.